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Making the Training Function Return on the Investment

Monthly Archives: August 2015

Have you ever walked out of a training workshop, a webinar or even after completing an eLearning course and said to yourself, that was a waste of time or pointless? All too often employees are being forced to participate in training that not only do they feel is pointless, but it really was unnecessary for them to attend. Maybe they already had the skills. Maybe it lacked what they really needed to know. Maybe they just didn’t see the purpose. For whatever reason, the time and expense it took to develop and attend this event was pointless to them and probably pointless period.

All company executives, not just the Human Resources Director and the Training Director, should be asking these questions. Is your training a series of pointless events? What do employees say about your training efforts? Do they long for more information, different skills or a more engaging environment for learning?

While we never set out to develop pointless training solutions, pointless workshops or an entire pointless training department, it sadly happens way too often. And each time it does happen, it makes a turnaround that much harder to implement.

Help is on the way!

My new book, “Pointless Training: The Consequences of Inadequate Training Strategies“ is in the final stages of publication and will be available for purchase in a couple of months. Stay Tuned to this blog for details…….

When it comes to researching learning and development programs, products and trends, I’m a big proponent of doing your own homework before paying someone else to do it for you. While we all seem to grasp the idea that our kids should do their own homework rather than paying someone else to do it for them, the benefits of doing it ourselves seem to diminish as adult professionals.

Let’s say you want to implement a new Learning Management System (LMS) this next year. Discovering why you want to have a LMS and how you want to use it in your company should be a road you travel with experts, but you need to drive the car. Please don’t take the directions from a single source and assume “one size fits all” will work for you. In fact, it is better to use these research operations to justify your position and decisions and to open your mind to other possibilities.

Should you be asked to give feedback to other colleagues remember that what is working for your operation may or may not work in their operation. Always preface your comments with why you are doing something before talking about how you are doing something.

While I have a lot of respect for “think tank” operations, it is important to separate or at least be conscience of the separation between academia and real world operations. What statistics say and how they will impact each reader of the data are different for every company. Benchmarking and trends are great for supporting agendas, but they should not be used as a live or die requirement to change what is working,

Bottom line, when you are trying to research a solution to a performance challenge, do your own homework. Then when you tell your child that they must write their own essay you won’t be a hypocrite either.